


Everyone's mad but me.

by longhairshortfuse



Series: One Shot Wonders [2]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-05
Updated: 2014-10-05
Packaged: 2018-02-19 23:38:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2407094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longhairshortfuse/pseuds/longhairshortfuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos wakes up in a strange room, surrounded by familiar faces. But why does everyone act like they are meeting him for the first time and what is Dana doing back in the desert? Has she come for him?</p><p>Someone gets beaten to death in ch3. The rest is mild.</p><p>Links with http://archiveofourown.org/works/2237964/chapters/5308583</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Case History

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fairly quickly so I expect there are holes. Feel free to fill them yourself.

Carlos woke up. He looked around in panic, he was not in the same place where he fell asleep. Where was the pink sand? The perpetual harsh light that hurt his eyes? The strange cacti that pushed him away when he tried to examine them? He remembered the feeling of being lifted, being moved, being brought inside this shelter. He was warm, he felt safe.  
A man appeared. He was a large man, useful in this job, dressed in practical but colourful clothing, loose cotton trousers and a matching vee-neck short-sleeve tunic. He brought a mug of something warm that might have been coffee and set it down next to Carlos before helping him to sit up. 

"Good morning, stranger. Did you sleep?"  
"Thank you. Yes, I slept. I usually do not these days, must be something to do with the terrible light."  
"I brought you something. Drink it, it will do you good."  
Carlos downed the warm liquid that tasted almost but not quite like coffee. He lay down again and started a slow drift back to sleep.  
"Thank you Doug."  
The nurse left the featureless room and checked his tunic. He was not wearing a name badge. 

Carlos woke again several hours later and lay in the dim room waiting for his head to clear. Thought was difficult. Ideas squirmed in his head refusing to be pinned down. As soon as he caught the tail of one thought another three would crowd in to distract him and he would forget for a moment who he was, where he was.  
 _Where was he?_  
He _should_ be in Doug's shelter, he had seen Doug, Doug had brought him a drink that made him sleep. He hadn't seen Aleesha but he thought that he had heard them last night but that might have been a dream or hallucination. He knew he had them, saw visions when he was awake and stared at the terrible light for too long.  
There was no terrible light here. He felt safe. Doug would come back for him. He could call Cecil while he waited. 

Carlos felt his clothing. The pockets were gone. He was not wearing the jeans and shirt he had been residing in for the months he was stuck in the desert. He sat up, patting down his tunic and pants. The flannel and denim he expected were replaced by soft grey cotton pyjamas. He got out of bed and felt his head swim. He sat down again, missed the edge of the bed and hit the floor.  
The door opened and closed. Carlos felt arms lift him and help him on to the bed. He heard a familiar voice.  
"Careful now, don't try to stand up too quick, let us look after you."  
"Aleesha! Thank you. I need my phone, I can't find it. I want to call Cecil."  
Aleesha looked at the man who was brought in yesterday, exhausted and stinking, muttering about a lighthouse and a blinking red light and a cactus that hit him. They had helped Doug clean him up and feed him a protein shake, put him to bed, gathered his possessions and sent his clothes to the incinerator. There had been an iPhone 5 with a cracked screen.  
"I will find your phone for you." 

Aleesha went to the break room.  
"This is a long shot, but do any of you have an iPhone 5 you can lend me? Maybe you're updating and have one spare? Patient therapy reasons. Just the phone, not your sim, I can't promise you'll get it back anytime soon."  
"Are you more nuts than the patients?"  
"Worth a try."  


Carlos sat up slowly as Aleesha came back into the room. Aleesha was an impressive height and Carlos could tell that there was a smile behind the blue face mask.  
"Here, I found your phone. I think it's broken, maybe from when the _cactus_ hit you and you dropped it?"  
Carlos stared at the phone and seemed to shrink a little. His face fell, his head sank down to his chest and his hands came up as he started to sob. Aleesha left the room quietly. 

"Doug, can I have your phone?"  
"Sure, it's in my locker. Help yourself, my combination is your birthday."  
Aleesha retrieved the phone, wondering just how angry Doug was going to be later when he found out what happened to it.  
The man looked up as Aleesha walked in.  
"Can I see your phone for a moment?"  
The man pointed to the floor. He would not make eye contact. Aleesha picked it up and sat on the chair. The man ignored them, occasionally wiping his face and sniffing. Aleesha though they had never seen a more concentrated example of misery, and in their job that was saying something. Aleesha carefully swapped the sim cards over, took a screenshot, and set that as the background so that the phone looked at a glance to have full wifi and 97% battery. They put the phone on the bed beside the miserable man and left the room, hoping to be able to make the broken phone work somehow before Doug needed it. 

The odd man picked up the phone and stared at it. His expression changed from misery to incredulity to pure joy and relief over the space of about a minute as Aleesha watched from the window in the door. He put the phone to his ear and spoke.  
"Cecil? Cecil is that you? Can you hear me okay? I was so worried, I broke my phone and I thought I would never get to talk to you, to hear your beautiful voice again. I was hit suddenly by just how much I depend on you, how much I need to know that you are okay and that you are there waiting for me. I promise I am trying to get back to Night Vale, back home to you. Yes, I am safe here, I am being looked after by the masked army in their camp. Doug and Aleesha, I told you about them, right? Doug and Aleesha are looking out for me. Yes. Yes I will. I love you. Goodnight."  
Aleesha watched as the man, calm now and smiling dreamily, lay down clutching the phone to his chest and fell asleep. 

Aleesha had predicted correctly, Doug was not happy. They pointed out that Doug liked to have the latest technology and would likely want a new phone soon anyway, and the cracked one kind of worked if you held it right and they were very sorry but it made the new patient calm down and oh just look at that adorable expression on his face and the way he was hugging the phone and...  
Doug was not so annoyed that he could deny Aleesha their pleasure at having made the odd man feel better. That was also their job and they were damn good at it. 

In the morning, Carlos felt better. He got up and sat in the chair when Doug brought his breakfast.  
"Flaky-Os! I have not had those for ages. Where did you get them? Cecil used to get these all the time."  
Doug frowned. "They're just _Cheerios_ , but some catering company's own version so they're cheaper. Can I see your phone?"  
Carlos handed it over. Doug checked the _recents_ tab. It was empty. 

"Hey Aleesha?"  
"Yeah?"  
"That call he made wasn't a real call. I added it to his observations file. Can I take my phone back yet?"  
"No way. We have to keep him calm until his evaluation this evening. I will tell Dana that she can take a proper history, he's some level of deranged but at least lucid for now." 

Aleesha made the call and Dana asked if the new potential inmate could be brought to her consulting room on the top floor. Doug and Aleesha collected the man, told him they were going for a walk and he could come too, up to the top of the building.  
"Up as far as the blinking red light?"  
Aleesha frowned but Doug understood. "There is a red flashing light up there, it is on top of the mobile phone mast on the tower."  
They escorted the man upstairs and handed him over to Dana. She stared as he greeted her by name.  
"Dana! I thought you had left. I thought you went through one of the old oak doors back home to Night Vale. Why are you back in the lighthouse?" 

Dana did her best not to let her confusion show as she interviewed the strange man.  
"What is your name?"  
"Have you forgotten me? It's Carlos. Carlos the Scientist. Nobody in Night Vale calls me anything else.  
"What is your job?"  
Carlos giggled. "Scientist."  
"What kind of science? Biology? Chemistry?"  
"Just science, I am interested in all of it. Except trees and imaginary corn."  
Dana wrote some things down.  
"Are you using a pen? You will get into trouble for that. Pens are illegal, the City Council re-educated me and my team once for using pens in public."  
"Why are pens illegal?"  
"They don't like what people write."  
Dana smiled. "Well, censorship is an issue everywhere. At least your City Council is being upfront about it." 

Carlos frowned. "Not my city council. If I belonged there I would have been able to go back through the old oak door like you did. Why are you back here? Did you come to find me? Cecil said you were mayor now. That's awesome."  
Dana frowned and looked at her notes.  
"How did you know my name? And Doug and Aleesha?"  
"I met you in the desert. At this lighthouse in fact. I knew about you before too, Cecil talks about you a lot, I think you were his favourite intern. You came to this desert through the dog park and the house that does not exist. You met Doug and made friends then you went back to Night vale to fight Strex. With Maureen."  
Dana put the notebook down and buzzed for Doug to come back in. She asked if he would mind getting them both coffee. When he had gone, Dana resumed questioning.  
"Just exactly how do you know about Maureen? and StrexCorp?"  
"She was here in the desert too, you found each other and made friends I guess, Maureen was Cecil's intern after you. StrexCorp was trying to take over Night Vale by very hostile means. You and Josie's angels and the masked army and Tamika got rid of them."  
"Carlos, how are you doing this? And who is Cecil? 

Much later, after a coffee break and a monologue about the science of sunlight and seismology, Dana read over her extensive notes. Carlos was safely back in his room with Doug watching over him. Dana had made Carlos start over again from the beginning. It had taken hours and they were both tired and a little confused by the end of his incredible tale.  
The desk phone rang. He picked it up and smiled at the voice on the other end.  
"Thanks for getting back to me so quickly Dr Palmer. We have a patient you are going to love." 


	2. Deluded

Dr Palmer arrived at the security gate and was buzzed through with barely a look at his pass. He would probably complain about that later, Carlsburg was the name of the slack security officer. He parked in his reserved space and went straight up to Dana's office rather than his own.  
"Dana, can you give me some more details about our new guest?"  
"Yes. Sit? There's coffee. Don't worry, I made it so it's okay."  
Dr Palmer sat opposite Dana, the woman who used to be his intern and was now kind of his boss, depending on your point of view. She deserved it, he thought, it was a tough job to run a hospital like this one with only a tiny budget to spend on treatment for people with few means and unpopular ailments.  
"Tell me about Carlos the Scientist." 

"Okay. He was brought in yesterday suffering from exhaustion, dehydration and signs of having been beaten, but not badly, just bumps and scrapes. He was filthy. His clothes have had to be incinerated and his possessions included a broken phone and a telescopic umbrella. He has told a story to Doug and to Aleesha and then to me that seems self consistent and doesn't change."  
"And you think he is delusional because...?"  
Dana smiled.  
"Wait until you hear him tell his story. We are all in it, mentioned by name. He told his story to Doug before he had even met any of us. You are in it, Maureen is there. Even StrexCorp gets a mention."  
Dr Palmer scowled.  
"Those bastards? I thought nobody knew what they were up to!"  
"It appears that Carlos the Scientist somehow does, although the context he has woven around them is a little unusual."  
"Right, you had better tell me everything you have found out about this _Carlos_ before I see him for his evaluation." 

Dana thought it best to play down some of Carlos's story, especially the bit about him having been Cecil's boyfriend for quite a long time. Dr Palmer listened, asked relevant questions in the right language _did the patient imply that he believed..._ and _in your professional opinion is it the case that..._ and gave Dana time to think and consult her notes before answering  
After a long discussion with Dana, Dr Palmer asked to speak separately with Doug and with Aleesha. Doug kept to the basics but Aleesha told him about the telephone call.  
Dr Palmer thought it best to ask for both nurses to be present when he interviewed _Carlos the Scientist._  
Doug shrugged. Aleesha smiled and nodded, they would not have missed it for anything.

Doug knocked on Carlos's door more as a warning than a courtesy.  
"Visitor for you, Carlos, this is Dr Palmer. He is our psych... Whoa, Carlos!"  
Carlos had launched himself across the room and enveloped Dr Palmer in a bear-hug. He was crying.  
"Cecil! Is this real? I thought I would never see you again! What are you doing here? I couldn't get to Night Vale, have you found a way to come to me in the desert? Can you go back and forth safely? Oh, Cecil, I have missed you so much."  
Dr Palmer had experienced a lot of strange behaviour in his career. This was unusual but not threatening, and clearly needed very careful handling. He caught Aleesha's eye. They were grinning and gesturing. He put his arms around the emotional patient and stroked his hair. He spoke softly.  
"Carlos! I am happy that you are safe. I am trying to find out what is happening to you so that you can go home. I can come and go, but I will have to be careful while I am here that I don't stay too long. Do you understand?"  
Carlos nodded and allowed Dr Palmer to pull away from him. Dr Palmer turned as he left the room, observed Carlos the Scientist from the window in the door for a moment. He had felt a strange comfortable familiarity, a feeling of _rightness_ when the man he had only just met embraced him. 

As he sat in his own office, Cecil also thought to himself, _They didn't mention that he is perfect. Perfect, beautiful, impossible Carlos the Scientist. What am I going to do about you?_  
Later Cecil went home to his small apartment rather than stay on site in one of the staff bunks. 

Carlos was too excited to sleep. Doug offered him another protein shake with _a little something to help you out_ added to it but Carlos refused. He tried to explain.  
"I have seen Cecil! I held him again, only for a few moments and he seemed a little distant but that is to be expected. It has been months for me, who knows how long it has been for him! I should be as patient with him as he has often been with me. I love him, Doug, do you understand that? I worried that our love was too fragile, one of us would get so lost in work that we would forget. But I remembered. I always remembered. All those times you took me up to the lighthouse to look at the pictures, look through the frames so I could see Cecil. Do you remember?"  
Doug frowned as Carlos gushed. Something nagged at the back of his brain. Something that wasn't exactly a memory made Carlos's story feel familiar.  
"By the way, how is your dog? I have not seen it around."  
Doug froze. How on Earth could Carlos know about their dog?  
"It's injured, got in a fight and had to go to the vet."  
"Oh I am sorry, I hope it heals quickly. Did I tell you about Cecil's cat, Khoshekh?" 

"Hi, Dr P? It's Doug, Carlos's nurse. I'm sorry this might be a stupid question but do you have a cat called Khoshekh? Only Carlos mentioned it and his stories are starting to sound... well, call me if you think it is important. He didn't want a sedative but I gave him one anyway, hope that's okay. Goodnight." 

Carlos woke up to see Cecil sitting on his chair, watching him, and Doug's face duck away from the window.  
"Am I dreaming again? You are actually here?"  
"Yes I am here. Have you had hallucinations before? Of me?"  
"Urgh, yes. It is awful to dream of you and wake up and find that you are not here." Carlos smiled. "This was the other way around. I think Doug drugged me to make me sleep, that's okay I can look at it rationally this morning. I needed it. But I don't remember dreaming and yet here you are."  
Carlos sat up and fixed Cecil with a stare.  
"I did a lot of thinking before I fell asleep last night and I came to a scientific conclusion based on my observations."  
"Oh? And what is that?"  
"Either I am delusional or _all_ of you are." 


	3. Dream a little dream

Cecil stared back at Carlos.  
"How did you reach that conclusion?"  
"I am a scientist. This is nothing like a mental institution of the type I would be committed to if I was really insane. I would be drugged to the eyeballs and probably restrained in case I tried anything physical. I'm sorry about that by the way, I was, am, just really happy to see you even if you are not real, or I am not real, or whatever.  
"Also, you all claim that I was never part of your lives until I was brought here. Who brought me? Why would they do that, instead of taking me to a police station? How do I know all your names? Go on, try me. Give me a name and I'll describe the person."  
Cecil smiled.  
"Steve Carlsberg."  
"That jerk!" 

"Any other evidence that would suggest which of us was delusional?"  
Carlos thought. Cecil liked the way he frowned a little then relaxed into a smile when he had an idea.  
"How did you get to be a psychiatrist?"  
"Uh, I went to college and..." Cecil frowned, he _knew_ this, "okay all that's coming to my mind is..."  
"... Russian? What college did you go to?"  
Cecil stood up and left the room. He came back ten minutes later with his own personnel file and handed it to Carlos.  
It was gibberish. 

Cecil pulled his seat up close to Carlos, leaned in and spoke quietly.  
"If you're really a scientist, how did this happen and how do we fix it?"  
"I don't know. I need to study it, I am not an expert in brain activity and perception."  
"Of course not. Why would you be one of the useful kinds of scientist that actually knows how to put things right?"  
Carlos looked hurt and Cecil was immediately remorseful.  
"I'm sorry, it's just that... Oh gods. I don't want to say anything stupid, especially with an army of nurses listening. Gossip, you know?"  
Carlos could see the door-window was vacant. He quickly leaned over and kissed Dr Palmer once, softly and pulled away. 

Cecil's world crashed down around him. He pushed Carlos onto the bed, held him in a tight embrace and kissed him without reserve, without caring who saw or who reported him for inappropriate behaviour with a patient. _How could I not have recognised the love of my life?_ Cecil felt the air shimmer around him. He looked up. Carlos lay on a bed as before but wearing some kind of array of electrodes hooked up to a machine with pretty lights winking on and off, Cecil lay halfway on top of him, his electrodes pulled off by the force of his subconscious lunge towards Carlos. The hospital walls were gone, replaced by peeling paintwork lit by flickering strip-lights.  
The door opened. Cecil sat up, expecting to see Doug or maybe Dana come to escort him off the premises. It was neither. He opened his eyes wide in surprise.  
"Kevin?"  
Kevin stepped aside and Daniel pulled Cecil out of the room. 

At the other side of the room, Doug woke up angry. Aleesha was furious. Dana choked back murderous thoughts, she was a politician now and had to be seen to be fair. Steve felt the wires in his head and yelled _Dammit! I knew this would happen but nobody ever listens!_  
Kevin loomed over Steve with a knife and Steve lashed out, knocking the smiling face back and twisting the wrist of the hand holding the knife until Kevin yelled out and dropped the weapon. Carlos watched but did not intervene as Steve kneed Kevin, causing him to double over then brought the same knee up hard into Kevin's face. Daniel stood aside and admired the spray of blood that erupted from Kevin's nose and mouth as he fell to the side. Steve continued his attack, kicked hard at Kevin's face and body until the grinning man was unrecognisable.  
Steve saw the knife. He lifted it, carefully felt along Kevin's back for the correct intercostal space and drove the knife in hard.  
Kevin would never hurt his family again. 

Daniel released everyone except Carlos.  
"Why did you let them go?"  
"For the same reason I will let you go and you will not tell anyone where to find me. I am not what I once was. Lauren showed me how to be... how to be human. How we could both be just people living ordinary lives. We got out, Strex forgot about us, Night Vale moved on. We opened an ordinary business in town, I even saw Cecil in there once. But Kevin showed up a couple of weeks ago with you as a gift, Lauren slipped. They planned revenge. I wanted no part in it but stayed to curb their activities a little. A loose connection here, insufficient saline gel there, forget to switch something on, petty sabotage to make sure that regardless of who was chosen to drive your hallucinations, someone always saw the cracks and asked questions that caused the kind of conflict that caused your brains to reject the illusion."  
"Nobody would suspect a biomachine. Lauren will blame Kevin and Steve has ensured that Kevin will not contradict her. I doubt you will see us again."

Daniel left, he could move fast.  
Carlos studied the machinery in confusion. He felt a presence beside him.  
"Cecil? This time, is it you? I remember so many dreams! We were both high school students. I was your psychiatrist, or maybe you were mine. I was calling you while you were working on a... a... chatline, yes, that was it, a chatline. You were a fucking _robot_ in one of them, that was _completely_ awesome by the way. And in every single one of those dreams there was something that told me it wasn't real. Except you, I always loved you. That is real. I want to go home now."  
Cecil smiled and took his hand to lead him out of the basement into blinding, noisy sunlight. 

"Carlos? Carlos! Please answer, please, Carlos? Where are you?"  
Carlos opened his eyes and blinked.  
"Cecil, is that you?"  
"Oh thank goodness. I thought I had lost you when your picture pixellated and skype made my shitty phone crash. I should save up for a new one."  
Carlos sat up and looked at his phone, looked out over the pink sand.  
"Ah shit, Cecil? I had another of those dreams I told you about. I wish I was home. But... Cecil? How can I possibly know anything about Kevin and Daniel?" 


End file.
